This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects—education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects—military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that.
The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden— that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.
In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.
From Mere Christianity
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity. Copyright © 1952, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed © 1980, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
We were created to become the children of God, little Christs as Lewis puts it. The church and all of Christianity are here to facilitate our becoming children of God and to facilitate our life as part of God’s family. When the church, the faith or any practitioner of the faith becomes a barrier to that progression, they or it should be rejected.
Those entities, philosophies, actions or beliefs that bring you into God’s family are to be accepted and followed. Even without the biblical truth, a faith tradition, a church or religious leaders, Noah, Moses, Abraham and other early church leaders found God and became God’s own.
So today, let us hear God’s voice whether together or alone, and let us follow all that voice teaches, with or without structure, scripture or religion if necessary. Just do it.
Doing it,
Z gardener
This kind comment was sent from D gardener. Thank you, Z.
Sometimes, he gets the paddle in the water just right.
You too.
Just do it!
– D